Port Richmond scholar will join the Peace Corps

Port Richmond scholar will join the Peace Corps

Graduating senior Molly Delbridge of Mission Viejo, Cal., will be Wagner College’s next Peace Corps Volunteer. Delbridge, an anthropology and Spanish major, will serve as a health resource volunteer in Belize.

Delbridge has had substantial student experiences with the kind of work she will be doing as a PCV in Belize.

As Wagner College’s Port Richmond scholar for health and wellness, she has implemented some of her own programs in the community and on campus, including the coordination of two “hunger banquet” fundraisers for Project Hospitality, a community-based nonprofit, and several health presentations at El Centro del Inmigrante, an association of American immigrants primarily from Mexico and Central America.

“I also worked last summer with an NGO in Peru,” Delbridge said. “We organized health fairs in two communities with no other access to care, bringing professionals and supplying materials.

“My field experiences, though, have all been temporary. With the Peace Corps, I’ll be able to help get something more permanent started,” she said.

The application process to become a Peace Corps Volunteer is rigorous, to say the least.

“In addition to a resume and C.V., I had to fill in detailed experiences at different types of volunteer work I’d been involved with,” Delbridge said. “Then there were two essays: one on why you want to join, the other on a few of the 10 core expectations for Peace Corps Volunteers. If you make it to that point, there’s a 2-hour interview — and then they give you a ‘nomination’ for service in a general region, though you don’t know what country or assignment yet.”

There’s a security check, more paperwork, an extraordinarily thorough battery of medical exams — and then, at last, Delbridge got her assignment.

“I leave on June 24 for Miami, just an overnight pit stop on the way to Belize, where I will start my 8 weeks of training,” Delbridge said.

Is the future Peace Corps Volunteer anxious about the new adventure she will soon embark upon?

“My mom raised me to be fearless, to travel and experience the world,” Delbridge said. “This is something I’ve been wanting for a long time. I’ve loved my time at Wagner — but now it’s time to go out there and make a difference.”